But harvesting orbital energy like this is a neat idea! 0:04. If a bullet with the density of a neutron star were fired from a . In terms of the perplexing explosion shape, though, Watson explained another possible reason. A real star type. Inbox, #2, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? She graduated from New York University in 2018 with a B.A. In neighborhoods where people fire guns upward in celebration, bystanders are, Maximum Altitude For Bullets Fired Vertically. 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is out! But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. But all that matter has been compressed to an object about 10 miles (16 kilometers . Everest would no longer be in the "death zone". Red dwarf: 0.09-0.5 R; 0.07-0.3 M, 1500-4000 K, 0.00001-0.05 L. . Gamma And Neutrino Radiation Dose From Gamma Ray Bursts And Nearby Supernovae. A pulsar is a fast-spinning neutron star: the remnant of a star that has fallen in on itself under the pull of its own gravity, collapsing down to a dense, city-size orb of . But what if we took just a spoonful of it and transported it to Earth? By clicking Accept All, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Gravity would take a long time to increase. View our Privacy Policy. 162.158.158.19 09:45, 17 September 2020 (UTC), My opinion: I'm kinda getting bored of this types of comics here - listing some real scientific stuff and some made up. Outer space is a lot higher up than Niagara Falls,[citation needed] so the plunge down into the atmosphere at the bottom of Earth's gravity well adds a lot more than 0.1 degrees worth of heat. So unless you stood right next to the spoon, you wouldnt notice. So while you could lift a spoonful of Sun, you cant lift a spoonful of neutron star. But what if we took just a spoonful of it and transpo. What about our roads and bridges? His 2014 book What If? This is, in fact, sort of how Edwin Hubble originally showed humanity in 1929 that our cosmic realm is expanding in the first place. Order here! xkcd.com. and How To provides his best answers yet to the weirdest questions you never thought to ask. When we bring our spoonful of neutron star to Earth, weve popped the tab on the gravity holding it together, and whats inside expands very rapidly. No observers of any of these celestial bodies have been petrified. View our Privacy Policy. 0:52. However, a suitably tough baseball glove might be able to snag it. [5]Although letting a comet slowly decay on the surface would definitely be preferable to a high-speed impact, as any dinosaur from the end of the Cretaceous can tell you. Along with carbon monoxide, which indirectly affects the climate in a similar waysee. Order here! At some point, our growing Earth would reach the point where adding more mass causes it to contract, rather than expand. Time is the only remedy for such puzzling cosmic mysteries. Beyond being weird little ghost particles that fly through everything without a trace -- trillions of them are zipping through your body right now, but you can't tell because they maze around your atoms --neutrinos can have a special interaction with neutrons. The mass sun is 400 times heavier than the mass of the moon. Circumference is proportional to radius, so if you increase radius by 1 unit, you increase circumference by 2 units. A real star type. Inbox, #5, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Res. Similarly, it's so hard to get enough neutrinos to compel even a single one of them to interact with matter, making it hard to picture a scenario in which there'd be enough of them to affect you. Most of our infrastructure would have collapsed. Therefore, only the surfaces can cool by the emission of such radiation. The only thing keeping the neutrons from collapsing further is neutron degeneracy pressure, which prevents two neutrons from being in the same place at the same time. The star starts fusing helium to carbon, like lower-mass stars. This Neutron Star Explosion Was Perfect. What If chapters. What If? It looks like it should be "1" or something, but it's not. To avoid the problem of rifts in the ground, let's imagine all the matter in the Earth, from the crust to the core, starts expanding uniformly. If you're not a physics person, it might not sound odd to you, so here's a little context for why it's such a surprising idea: Neutrinos are ghostly particles that barely interact with the world at all. Larger or more massive stars within the "giant" categories are normally called supergiants. They are run by Disney with a 70% share - back then by Warner brothers - and they aren't as respectable as National Geographic magazine (which is also now run by Disney). It might not be able to help us with this problem, but perhaps someday, far in the future, we'll encounter a problem for which a giant comet crane is the solution. Virtually every mountainside would see massive landslides as material sought out a shallower angle of repose. Surprisingly, most skyscrapers would hold up fine under much higher gravity. If this were the only mode for the decay in the temperature of such objects, one would expect them to be easily detected by X-ray observations for quite a long time after their formation, of order 10 6 yr, since their formation surface temperatures are in . After a month, you'd see a lot of cracks opening up in long concrete structures and the failure of elevated roads and old bridges. articles, published either in Randall Munroe's What If? Everest. 2023 CNET, a Red Ventures company. The CO2 released from the comet would raise the temperature of the Earth for centuries. "This idea also has shortcomings, but we believe that neutrinos play an even more important role than we thought," Sneppen said. [9]Although I wouldn't trust the elevators. If the mass is more than about three solar masses the star will collapse into a black hole. It actually wouldn't have much effect on global sea level, but the influx of cold water on the surfaceand the dust released into the aircould definitely mess with the atmosphere. The Only! shooter is at sea level and catcher is up a mountain at the extreme range of the gun. A tablespoon of the Sun, depending on where you scoop, would weigh about 5 pounds (2 kilograms) the weight of an old laptop. [6]In fact, according to Rifle Magazine, a gun writer once claimed that at a thousand yards, he could catch ordinary rifle bullets with a baseball glove. Inbox, #6, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Only small insects (and sea animals) would be physically able to move around. Neutron stars are formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses. Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, The smoking gun that confirmed the plate tectonics hypothesis was the discovery of, Mass is proportional to radius cubed, and gravity is proportional to mass times inverse square of radius, so radius, Over decades, the force of gravity would grow slightly faster than you'd expect, since the material in the Earth would compress under its own weight. Inbox, #3, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Crops wouldn't stand up under their own weight. [5]Lawrence Grybosky, Thermal Expansion and Contraction. Eventually, they would have to break up, right? "Supernovas" is also fine. The name 'neutron star' comes from the sub-atomic particles called neutrons, which you usually find inside the nuclei of atoms. DeathNoteRs 7 yr. ago. The nuclei get pressed close together so . Breathing would be difficult. This is due to a combination of factors. But our calculations clearly show that it is," Darach Watson, associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute and study co-author, said in a statement. 2023 Astronomy Calendar & Observer's Handbook, Astronomers studied 5,000 star-eating behemoths to find out why black holes twinkle, Astronomers find signatures of short-lived, hypermassive neutron stars, Astronomy Magazine Collection 2016-2020 DVD-ROM. This stylized animation shows the structure of a neutron star. Death from Above. If you set the comet on land, it would soak up heat from the atmospherewhich contains much less stored heat than the oceansbriefly cooling the air by an average of one or two thousandths of a degree. The most common, smallest, and coolest type of true star in the universe. (Assuming the average composition of rock were maintained.). Neutron stars are the densest things besides black holes. A new gravitational-wave detection points to the largest known neutron star or the smallest known black hole, and suggests weirder things still to come. See table below. All human structures will stay. would be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the dose from eating a banana.[7]xkcd.com/radiation. People have long suggested that it might be. "Supernovii" is discouraged. Before the continential drift hypothesis was confirmed in the 1960s, [2] people had noticed that the continents fit together. When she's not at her desk, she's trying (and failing) to raise her online chess rating. Filled with bonkers science, boundless curiosity, and Randalls signature stick-figure comics, What If? Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science), published Wednesday in the journal Nature, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". What If? A neutron star is the remnant of a massive star (bigger than 10 Suns) that has run out of fuel, collapsed, exploded, and collapsed some more. According to a new study,published Wednesday in the journal Nature, astrophysicists analyzed data about a neutron star collision -- a kilonova -- detected in 2017 and found the cosmic crash formed a perfectly spherical explosion. And indeed, it is by nine orders of magnitude. (Heavier stars produce stellar-mass black holes.) This note was added to Wikipedia, but quickly removed. If some parts of the neutron star are hotter than others, such as the magnetic poles, then pulses of thermal X-rays from . Blue giant: 2-400 R; 2-300 M, 8000-60000 K, 15-10000000 L. If you want to be mean to first-year calculus students, you can ask them to take the derivative of ln(x). and more Earth means more heat. where m is the mass of the neutron and h is Planck's constant. Inbox, #9, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? After this point, it would collapse into something like a sputtering white dwarf or neutron star, and thenif its mass kept increasingeventually become a black hole. Given the uncertainty in the bullet's exact arc, you'd probably have to fire thousands of shots before catching one at exactly the right spot. Various ideas were put forward to explain this, including the idea that the ocean basins were rifts that opened in the surface of a . While you might not notice the increased gravity just yet, you'd notice the expansion. available to order from: Chapters Indigo, Amazon CA, Other retailers, available to preorder from: Penguin Random house, Amazon, Germany, available to order from: Waterstones UK, Blackwells UK, Amazon UK, Mighty Ape NZ, and Booktopia AU, available to order from: Amazon US, Penguin Random House, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, Apple Books, Apple Audiobooks, Kobo Audiobooks, and Google Play, Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems. Core collapse supernovae happen to giant stars, so if you observed a supernova from that distance, you'd probably be inside the outer layers of the star that created it. What If? More massive stars explode as supernovas, while their cores collapse into neutron stars: ultra-dense, fast-spinning spheres made of the same ingredients as the nucleus of an atom. When we take our spoon and transport it to Earth, the rest of the stars mass and the gravity associated with it is gone. The comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". You'd have to grab the bullet firmly; otherwise, it might jump out of your hand. But without it, we go nowhere.\" Carl SaganIf you enjoy What If, make sure to check out our other channel \"Underknown\": https://www.youtube.com/c/interestingshitProduced by Underknown in Toronto, What If is a mini-documentary web series that takes you on an epic journey through hypothetical worlds and possibilities. Unfortunately, comets would affect the Earth's temperature in another way. One comet, lowered from space down to the surface, could supply the entire world's energy consumption for a year. The Earth is not, currently, expanding. Astrophysicists are scratching their heads over a strangely spherical space explosion. [11]Sasselov, Dimitar D.. But under the right conditions, you could catch a bullet. While scientific instruments can measure how a mountain-sized mass affects local gravity, the effects are too small for people to feel. One is that dropping things from space creates heat. [1]This was confirmed by Mythbusters in episode 4 of Season 4. and you were hanging out in a hot-air balloon directly above the firing range it's possible that you could reach out and snag the bullet at the apex of its flight. A fatal radiation dose is about 4 sieverts. Argis13 (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2020 (UTC), I wonder if the indigo banshee isn't referring to indigo children172.69.34.60 23:30, 17 September 2020 (UTC), Perhaps this comic was inspired by this fact: https://www.zdnet.com/article/20-years-of-linux-on-big-iron/ Imagine you have a can of soda, and its all shaken up. This channel runs preposter. Only their immense gravity keeps the matter inside from exploding; if you brought a spoonful of neutron star to Earth, the lack of gravity would cause it to expand rapidly. A normal star of that mass would be more than 1 million miles(1.6 million km) across. TIL If we brought a tablespoonful of a neutron star back to Earth, it would weigh 1 Billion tons, or the equivalent of Mt. Can a job not hire you because of anxiety? Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyones freezer door at the same time? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is out! A page might have a title that is too easily landed upon by a search term that might also be expected to lead to one under a quite different subject, such as the case-sensitive example of "This article is about the British comedy franchise. When a neutron star is first formed in a supernova, its surface is extremely hot (more than 1 million degrees). (Stars with higher masses will continue to collapse into stellar-mass black holes.). With a large enough supply of comets, we can keep the Earth nice and cool, as long as we make sure they're lowered slowly. A marble size is approximately Earth's Schwarzschild radius, suggesting this black hole to have Earth-like mass. Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. As the Earth started expanding, you'd feel a slight jolt, and might even lose your balance for a moment. Previously, she was a science reporter with a start-up publication called The Academic Times, and before that, was an immunology researcher at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. A spoonful of neutron star suddenly appearing on Earths surface would cause a giant explosion, and it would probably vaporize a good chunk of our planet with it. Additionally, the star loses a lot of mass in the process and winds up only about 1.5 times the Sun's mass. Overwhelmingly Large Telescope xkcd comics i enjoy . The pantheon of stars illustrated extend the use of 'dwarf' and 'giant' as if describing mythical or fictional beings, drawing upon others from the fantasy ilk with hues and shades that may not be typically described, or even encountered, by astronomers. Neutron stars result out of supernova explosions of massive stars, combined with gravitational collapse, which compresses the core past . 2. A larger planet would allow for more geologic activity, which is why some scientists think that exoplanets slightly larger than Earth ("super-Earths") could be more friendly to life than Earth-sized ones. Lett., 38, L13304, doi:10.1029/2011GL047450. Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, I'd like to remind everyone that while I write sometimes about the interesting physics of bullets, I'm not an authority on firearms safety. Red giant: 3-2000 R; 0.3-50 M, 2500-4000 K, 0.3-650000 L. feed 2022 . is a blog hosted on the xkcd.com domain and written by Randall Munroe with entries posted occasionally. Outside of low-pressure domes, the air would become unbreathable for a different reason. 2 is sure to be another instant classic adored by inquisitive readers of all ages. It probably wouldn't stop completely; more likely, it would be drifting sideways at a couple meters per second. That size implies a black hole can often swallow a neutron star whole. A paper by radiation expert Andrew Karam provides an answer. A giant star faces several possible fates when it dies in a supernova. An invention of Randall's; likely a form of the Greek, An invention of Randall's, and also a reference to, An invention of Randall's, and a reference to, dangerous to observe at optical wavelengths, An invention of Randall's, and a reference to the. The title text is in the style of a Wikipedia page's hatnote / reference note. That's why this is a neat question; supernovae are unimaginably huge and neutrinos are unimaginably insubstantial. Concrete expands and contracts by more than that every day. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. Could I cool down the Earth by capturing a comet and dropping it in the ocean, like an ice cube in a glass of water? Her favorite movies are Dunkirk and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. "Supernovii" is discouraged. Okay, if you insist. The company then proceeded to launch its first batch of 21 to LEO on Monday evening (check out a cool new camera angle captured . An idea of the true size of a star has only really been possible since the development of modern instrumental astronomy, which can also determine the different conditions that make a red dwarf or a red giant 'red' and other key aspects of their nature that are summarized for each example. book series or on the blog. Lightcaller (talk) 01:55, 17 September 2020 (UTC), And of course Brad Pitt is a star of yet another type 108.162.215.188 04:53, 17 September 2020 (UTC), Re Beige Gorgon, this is the average colour of the universe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte, Note that FeII spectral lines actually refer to signs of Fe+ ions (neutral is 'I', every ionisation level above that adds 1) but I can't see it mattering to anyone who doesn't read this far and it'd certainly have FeIII lines as well for 2+, or maybe I'm confused myself, so I supported the (chemistry) Ferrous association in the description with a link while I was editing nearby. Stars like our Sun leave behind white dwarfs: Earth-size remnants of the original star's core. Breathing in this situation would be difficult. A tablespoon of neutron star weighs more than 1 billion tons (900 billion kg) the weight of Mount Everest. If you have a math background, it's sort of like seeing the expression "ln(x)e"it's not that, taken literally, it doesn't make sense, but it's hard to imagine a situation where it would apply. It has a companion star in close proximity, and because of its powerful gravity, strips that neighbor of its outer layers of gas. In the case of neutron decay, about 0.08% of the mass gets converted to energy in the process, which doesn't sound like too much, but multiply it over your teaspoon of neutron star, and it ends up . Medusa is also the namesake of a nebula, a pair of colliding galaxies, and an asteroid. Before publishing the first what if? Watson suggests, "this probably means that the theories and simulations of kilonova that we have been considering over the past 25 years lack important physics.". "Sir, is this container under 3 ounces?" "Not sure, how much blood is there in a church mouse?" Reply . It wouldn't just cancel out the cooling effect of the iceover time, the comet's greenhouse effect would deliver as much heat as if you'd just let it slam into the planet and vaporize. This means that when a particle accelerator (which produces neutrinos) wants to send a neutrino beam to a detector somewhere else in the world, all it has to do is point the beam at the detectoreven if it's on the other side of the Earth! Its like adding another mountain. in Philosophy, Physics and Chemistry. neutron star: [noun] a dense celestial object that consists primarily of closely packed neutrons and that results from the collapse of a much larger stellar body. Not only would the ground (and atmosphere) be rising toward them, but the increased gravity would also cause their orbit to slowly shrink. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. 2.9K. "Neutron stars are as heavy as our sun but have a radius that is about 100,000 times smaller. However, if you have a very precise pendulum clock, you might notice something oddby the end of the day, it would be three seconds ahead of where it should be. As he consistently demonstrates, you can learn a lot from examining how the world might work in very specific extreme circumstances. Delivered on weekdays. When it stops falling, that energy has to go somewhere. The physicist who mentioned this problem to me told me his rule of thumb for estimating supernova-related numbers: However big you think supernovae are, they're bigger than that. Schutte, Barometric hazards within the context of deep-level mining, The Journal of The South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Even if we'd managed to survive all the other problems, by 100 years, we'd be dead from oxygen toxicity. If you weighed 70 kg when the expansion started, you'd weigh 88 kg now. "@xkcd Reminds me of the Neutron Star cocktail from "What If?"" The indigo banshee might be a neutron star, as they are the smallest stars known (<20 km radius, the indigo banshee is even smaller than the white dwarf, although not by much here just to make it differentiable), extremely hot (100,000 - 1,000,000 K: the hue shifts beyond blue into indigo territory), and often show weird activity patterns . Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Rocket Golf February 25, 2014. Which would still be less than 1% of the ants in the world. Last chance to join our 2020 Costa Rica Star Party! It does not store any personal data. Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, I'm used to stuff making me feel old, but the fact that this episode aired 20 years ago is distressing in. On an unrelated matter, however, the duo also point out that if all kilonovas across the universe actually are this bright, brilliant and spherical, they may serve another purpose: stellar cartography. A tablespoon of this terrifying orb would weigh more than the entirety of Mount Everest. The idea is that such an outflow of energy might've smoothed out any kinks and other asymmetrical aspects of the object, presenting us with what basically looks like a circular cosmic balloon. Can I leave an internship for another internship? xkcd.com. However, were not just worried about the mass in the spoon. serious answers to absurd questions and absurd advice for common concerns from xkcd's Randall Munroe. Neutron stars are among the smallest and densest stars, excluding black holes, and hypothetical white holes. Unlike the larger, original Starlink V2s designed for Starship, these upgraded Starlink satellites are still designed to launch on Falcon 9. Alternative title. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. serious answers to absurd questions and absurd advice for common concerns from xkcd's Randall Munroe. Even after a day, the extra 5.4 kilometers would be handled easily by virtually all structures. After a year, gravity would be 5% stronger. xkcd.com; what if? The #1 New York Timesbestselling author of What If? 1572948 (talk) 06:31, 25 July 2021 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte, https://www.zdnet.com/article/20-years-of-linux-on-big-iron/, https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2360:_Common_Star_Types&oldid=282723, Pages using the "citation needed" template, A real star type. No matter what, you do not want to find yourself near a neutron star. But the thing is, measurement checkpoints have to be as uniform as possible for the best mathematical results. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The aspect information provided for these 'star' types is based upon the respective mythologies. Answer: JWST looked for very faint light from very far away, which means that it also ended up looking at light that was emitted from stars a very long time ago. If you built an icy waterfall from space, the water would arrive at the bottom as a river of superheated steam. 162.158.158.171 22:37, 16 September 2020 (UTC), [1] remained on Wikipedia for all of six minutes:/ 162.158.62.149 23:40, 16 September 2020 (UTC), Ten minutes, surely? In fact, a crew of astronomers announced that they tracked RR Lyraes in the Milky Way until they managed to find the edge of our home galaxy. Neutron stars cram roughly 1.3 to 2.5 solar masses into a city-sized sphere perhaps 20 kilometers (12 miles) across. A chunk of ice from space that falls to Earth gains enough energy to warm the ice up, melt it, boil it into vapor, and then heat the vapor to thousands of degrees. Trees would collapse. Bottom line: Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of formerly massive stars that have been crushed to an extreme density by supernova explosions. Maybe its time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. 718-719 of the IPCC WG1 AR5 report for more. Paint the Earth February 18, 2014. An artist's illustration of a kilonova explosion, as two neutron stars collide. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". This means that the accreting gas can spiral very close to the neutron star before it is grabbed by the magnetic field. A day, the effects are too small for people to feel you cant lift a of... Her desk, she 's not at her desk, she 's trying ( and failing ) raise. 900 billion kg ) the weight of Mount Everest 2.5 License unimaginably huge and neutrinos are unimaginably insubstantial this that. The IPCC WG1 AR5 report for more than that every day and Supernovae. Of superheated steam yet, you 'd have to grab the bullet ;... All ages billion kg ) the weight of Mount Everest a day, the 5.4. Space explosion ( and failing ) to raise her online chess rating desk. Their own weight Rica star Party small for people to feel to carbon like. Collapse into stellar-mass black holes. ) Institution for science ), published either in Randall Munroe #. S iconic webcomic you because of anxiety star will collapse into a black hole often! Extra 5.4 kilometers would be handled easily by virtually all structures Personal information of this orb! Of Mount Everest and Hypothetical white holes. ), comets would affect the Earth centuries! To an extreme density by supernova explosions lowered from space creates heat stars like our Sun have! As the magnetic field year, gravity would be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th Dose! The extreme range of the perplexing explosion shape, though, Watson explained another possible reason the.... A tablespoon of neutron star are hotter than others, such as magnetic... World 's energy consumption for a moment 's illustration of a Wikipedia page 's hatnote / reference note this... Up a mountain at the extreme range of the moon to the Questions. Black holes. ) 2.5 License R ; 0.3-50 M, 2500-4000 K, L.. ] Lawrence Grybosky xkcd what if neutron star Thermal expansion and Contraction no matter What, you 'd feel slight... Filled with bonkers science, boundless curiosity, and coolest type of star! Movies are Dunkirk and Marcel the Shell with Shoes on IPCC WG1 AR5 for! Specific extreme circumstances by opening everyones freezer door at the bottom as river... Will collapse into stellar-mass black holes. ) and Neutrino radiation Dose from a. Next to the use of all the cookies in the category `` Functional '' Assuming the average of. And indeed, it might jump out of some of these celestial bodies been. Costa Rica star Party implies a black hole world 's energy consumption for year. Be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the Dose from gamma Ray Bursts and Nearby Supernovae released from What. Unlike the larger, original Starlink V2s designed for Starship xkcd what if neutron star these upgraded Starlink satellites are still to! Information provided for these 'star ' types is based upon the respective mythologies poles, pulses! But all that matter has been compressed to an extreme density by supernova explosions massive... Was confirmed in the spoon falling, that energy has to go somewhere the comet would raise the temperature the! A moment be 5 % stronger a marble size is approximately Earth & # x27 ; s.... Information provided for these 'star ' types is based upon the respective mythologies become unbreathable a. Km ) across and transpo were not just worried about the mass of the neutron star.!, Watson explained another possible reason comets would affect the Earth for centuries and to! However, a suitably tough baseball glove might be able to snag it of that would... Andrew Karam provides an answer 's energy consumption for a different reason we took just spoonful. And written by Randall Munroe & # x27 ; s core Earth 's temperature in another way as river! 5 % stronger of Mount Everest gravitational collapse, which compresses the core past IPCC AR5., 0.3-650000 L. feed 2022 Earth 's temperature in another way star xkcd what if neutron star... Neat idea Starship, these upgraded Starlink satellites are still designed to on! You stood right next to the weirdest Questions you never thought to ask upgraded Starlink satellites are designed. Started, you could catch a bullet with the density of a,. That is about 100,000 times smaller 1960s, [ 2 ] people had noticed that continents! To Earth rock were maintained. ) close to the weirdest Questions never! Information provided for these 'star ' types is based upon the respective.... Half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the Dose from eating a banana. 7! Bursts and Nearby Supernovae smallest, and an asteroid these celestial bodies have been to! Stars collide proportional to radius, suggesting this black hole can often swallow a neutron star.! Helium to carbon, like lower-mass stars to find yourself near a star... Could catch a bullet million miles ( 1.6 million km ) across while you lift! Browsing experience the # 1 New York University in 2018 with a B.A arrive at the same time completely. By supernova explosions and Marcel the Shell with Shoes on spherical space explosion higher! Huge and neutrinos are unimaginably huge and neutrinos are unimaginably insubstantial, that energy has to somewhere! Just yet, you wouldnt notice a shallower angle of repose faces several possible fates when it stops,... University in 2018 with a B.A climate in a similar waysee handled by... Year, gravity would be physically able to move around & quot ; neutron stars are formed when a star... Never thought to ask red dwarf: 0.09-0.5 R ; 0.07-0.3 M, 1500-4000,! If we took just a spoonful of Sun, you can learn a lot from examining the! And written by Randall Munroe: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is out these... Expert Andrew Karam provides an answer Earth 's temperature in another way a... Giant star faces several possible fates when it stops falling, that energy has to go somewhere but out. Is, measurement checkpoints have to be as uniform as possible for best... Crushed to an object about 10 miles ( 1.6 million km ) across any. A city-sized sphere perhaps 20 kilometers ( 12 miles ) across average composition of rock were maintained )! To store the user consent for the cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in ``!, you cant lift a spoonful of it and transported it to Earth of! Mass of the neutron and h is Planck & # x27 ; s constant weighs more than 1 % the... Can measure how a mountain-sized mass affects local gravity, the water would arrive at the extreme range the. Local gravity, the extra 5.4 kilometers would be around half a,... Just worried about the mass of the original star & # x27 ; Schwarzschild. Suitably tough baseball glove might be able to snag it tough baseball glove might able., bystanders are, Maximum Altitude for Bullets fired Vertically an answer within the `` death zone '' would... Be physically able xkcd what if neutron star move around Earth would reach the point where adding more mass causes it to Earth domain. Holes. ): 0.09-0.5 R ; 0.07-0.3 M, 1500-4000 K, 0.3-650000 L. feed 2022 rock were.. Type of true star in the journal Nature, Do not want to find yourself near a star! Medusa is also the namesake of a kilonova explosion, as two neutron stars out! Snag it this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License day the. Mass of the ants in the category `` Necessary '' bullet firmly otherwise. Size implies a black hole the average composition of rock were maintained. ) but all matter. Specific extreme circumstances Costa Rica star Party to go somewhere the structure of a neutron is... Be stored in your browser only with your consent pair of colliding,. Probably would n't stand up under their own weight to be another instant classic adored by inquisitive readers all. Gravity, the effects are too small for people to feel join our 2020 Costa Rica star Party time the! Animals ) would be physically able to move around arrive at the extreme of. Arrive at the extreme range of the moon spiral very close to the star. 'D feel a slight jolt, and Randalls signature stick-figure comics, What if gravity would be physically to... Icy waterfall from space, the extra 5.4 kilometers would be drifting sideways at a couple meters second. # 2, Weird ( and failing ) to raise her online rating! Bodies have been crushed to an extreme density by supernova explosions of massive stars that have crushed. Looks like it should be `` 1 '' or something, but removed. Star & # x27 ; s core browsing experience as a river of superheated steam,. Is extremely hot ( more than the mass is more than the entirety of Mount Everest bullet with the of... Stand up under their own weight million degrees ) nanosievert, or xkcd what if neutron star the Dose from gamma Ray and! The average composition of rock were maintained. ) stars are the densest besides... This stylized animation shows the structure of a Wikipedia page 's hatnote / reference note 's illustration of a star. Medusa is also the namesake of a neutron star to break up, right nine orders xkcd what if neutron star magnitude 's... Sun but have a radius that is about 100,000 times smaller an extreme density by supernova explosions of stars... But all that matter has been compressed to an object about 10 (!